Georges St-Pierre Workout - Part II

Just prior to winning the Welterweight Championship in UFC 83, we published an article on the Georges St-Pierre workout routine based on a press conference he held at one of his gyms in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. After more than 30 comments asking for more detailed information on his fitness regimen, we decided to interview one of Georges "Rush" St-Pierre's trainers, Firas Zahabi, who helps him train in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) as well as Muay Thai.

"Georges St-Pierre’s workouts are very short and they’re high intensity," he explained. "That's the difference between us and the majority of other people." So let's get down to the nitty-gritty and find out how GSP maintains his weight as well as his incredible body mass and strength.

the high intensity workout

Firas Zahabi says that, rather than train slowly but consistently, he will work with Georges St-Pierre on shorter, high intensity training sessions. "If you train for two to three hours, the intensity level can’t be the same as somebody who trains for one hour," he says. "So, the first 20 minutes of the training is warm up. We’re not really working out; we’re just stretching and getting the body warm. Then, we do only 40 minutes of work, but at as high a quality as possible, and by high quality I mean very intense."

"Let’s say I trained Georges St-Pierre on the mats for two hours," continues Firas. "He obviously couldn’t kick as hard and as often as if he was doing it for 40 minutes; if you tell someone 'I want you to sprint 100 meters,' he’s not going to hold anything back — he’s going to go as hard as he can because he knows it’s only 100 meters. But tell someone 'I want you to sprint for 800 meters' and he’s going to start slowly, but he’s going to pace himself. He’s going to do 800 meters as fast as he can, but he’s obviously not going to run as fast as if you’re telling him to do 100 meters. So, our first objective is to raise the intensity — how hard and fast can you go."

training for mma vs. boxing

To further illustrate his point, Firas Zahabi compares the training he does with GSP with the training that boxers undergo. "When we train, it’s always like a sprint because in MMA, your fight is like a sprint — it’s not like boxing where it’s very aerobic," he explains. "In boxing there’s no wrestling, so they’re running around the ring and you have 36-minutes of action — that’s more like a marathon and it makes sense to me that you go and jog for an hour or two because it’s very aerobic. In MMA, however, because of the clinching and because of the wrestling, it becomes more of an arm wrestling match. If you’re a championship arm wrestler, you don’t go jogging for 45 minutes a day; you lift weights, you go hard and intense, because that’s the specific training."